Donald Trump sues bank to block subpoenas; Rosenstein quits

Democratic-led House of Representatives, however, continues to probe the president, his family and his companies for alleged corruption, obstruction of justice and abuse of power.

worldUpdated: Apr 30, 2019 21:48 IST

HT Correspondent Hindustan Times, Washington

US President Donald Trump, his three eldest children and his company flied a lawsuit on Monday to prevent two banks from handing over their financial records pertaining to the Trumps in response to a congressional subpoena.(Reuters File Photo)

US President Donald Trump, his three eldest children and his company flied a lawsuit on Monday to prevent two banks from handing over their financial records pertaining to the Trumps in response to a congressional subpoena.

In an unrelated development, Rod Rosenstein, the department of justice No 2 official who had ordered a special counsel probe into Russian meddling and possible collusion by the Trump campaign, has put in his papers. He will leave next month ending a tumultuous two-year tenure, for much of which he was in the president’s cross-hairs.

Rosenstein is moving on now that Mueller probe, which he had defended from the president and congress Republicans, is over. It cleared President Trump of collusion but said it could not exonerate him for obstruction of justice.

Democratic-led House of Representatives, however, continues to probe the president, his family and his companies for alleged corruption, obstruction of justice and abuse of power.

Two House committees — for intelligence and financial services — had issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Capital One two weeks ago. Deutsche Bank has had a long relationship with the Trump organization, going back decades to the 1990s. It continued to lend to Trump when most other Wall Street banks shunned him over unpaid debts and defaults.

The Trump lawsuit filed in Manhattan, where the Trump organization is headquartered, questioned the subpoenas, saying they serve no “legitimate or lawful purpose” and that they were issued to “harass President Donald J. Trump, to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses and the private information of the president and his family, and to ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage. No grounds exist to establish any purpose other than a political one”.

Democrats heading the two committees, Adam Schiff and Maxine Waters, dismissed the lawsuit as “meritless” and said in a joint statement, “As a private businessman, Trump routinely used his well-known litigiousness and the threat of lawsuits to intimidate others, but he will find that Congress will not be deterred from carrying out its constitutional responsibilities.”

“This lawsuit is not designed to succeed; it is only designed to put off meaningful accountability as long as possible.”